Of course Priscilla confessed to her friend Rosa by what means she had
encompassed the downfall of Mr. Kelton. Rosa was not much of a musician,
and it seemed to her quite wonderful that any one could perform such
a feat as the transposition of a song within the space of twenty-four
hours, and then not shrink from playing the modulated version from
memory.
“It had to be done,” said Priscilla firmly. “How could I stand by and
hear that conceited man--but there was a clever man--a Frenchman of
course--who said ‘a tenor is not a man but a disease.’ I wonder why it
is that so many girls simply worship a tenor. Dr. Needham says it dates
back to primeval man and primeval woman, All singing, he says, is simply
primeval man calling to primeval woman to come out for a walk in
the moonlight. And that’s why the most favourite songs nowadays are
love-songs--tenor love-songs--languishing things--I hate them!”
“It served that horrid man right,” said Rosa. She did not show herself
to be greatly interested in the theories of Dr. Needham; but she was
intensely interested in the humiliation of a man who was horrid. “I
should like to be able to do just what you did. Men want to be taken
down dreadfully; but if a girl ever rises to do it she is looked on as
horrid herself.”
“And she usually is,” said Priscilla. “I have sometimes felt that it was
very horrid of me to play that trick upon that odious Mr. Kelton. Who
am I that I should set myself up to avenge his insults in regard to Mr.
Tutt? I have heard a little voice whispering in my ear.”
“You were quite right. Besides--” here Rosa made a little
pause--“besides, haven’t you very good reason to--to--well, I meant that
you were very badly treated by men, Priscilla dear.”
“Only by one man,” said Priscilla quickly. “Only by one.”
“And isn’t that enough? It’s a shame that one man should have it in his
power to wreck the life of a girl.”
“It does seem to be a shame. But what’s the good of complaining? A
woman has always been the bearer of burdens, and if she complains she is
treated worse than ever. I’m not sure that in the old days--before there
was any thought of convention or religion, which is only another form
of convention--a woman was much better off than she is now. To be sure,
when she found that she had married the wrong man she had it in her
power to run away with the right one, or the nearest approach to the
right one that she could find. I have now and again wondered during the
past year why I shouldn’t run away to another man and try to patch up
this wrecked life of mine.”
“Why shouldn’t you? It would only be fair and just; but you never would
do it, Priscilla.”
“Why should I not? I believe that I would do it if only the right man
turned up.”
“If he would let you do it he would not be the-right man.”
“I’m not so sure of that. The best men--the greatest men--the
bravest--the cleverest--the most devout men have never been
over-particular when it came to a question of women. I believe if I
were really to fall in love with a man I would do as so many of the best
women in the world have done--I would go to him, and let convention and
religion go hang.”
“Don’t tell me. You would do nothing of the sort. But do you really
feel so strongly about being married? I think, you know, that since you
worked out your plan of teaching Mr. Kelton a lesson you seem to be a
different girl, but still----”
“My dear Rosa, don’t let any one try to tell you that there’s any life
for a woman in this world apart from a man. There’s not. And don’t let
any one try to convince you that there’s any life for a man without a
woman by his side. There’s not.”
“To play his accompaniments?”
“Yes, in the right key, mind. That’s just what a woman is placed in the
world to do--to play a man’s accompaniments in the right key. If Mr.
Kelton had a wife by his side he would not now have a sense of being
made a fool of.”
“He’s probably as conceited as ever by this time. Now how was it that we
went on to talk of men and women when really our topic was Mr. Kelton?”
“I know. You were about to say that no one should think hardly of me for
making a fool of any man, considering how great a fool I was made by a
man. That was what was in your mind; but you were wrong, Rosie dear, for
I don’t think at all bitterly of men. On the contrary, I tell you
that you must be prepared for the worst--what your father and other
professional moralists would call the worst--from me. I’m only an
amateur moralist. In fact, I’m not quite sure that I should even call
myself an amateur. I don’t really know that I have any morals whatever.”
“You have no need for any. What do girls like you or me know of morals?”
“Nothing, except those we got hold of when we read Fontaine’s Fables at
school.”
“And then we always skipped or slurred over the ‘morals’--they spoilt
the story.”
“They did, and that is what they do every day; they spoil our stories.
Oh, what idiots we are--a couple of girls who have seen nothing in the
world and know nothing in the world, moralizing on morals! I’m not sure
that it isn’t immoral to discuss morality, Rosa. I should like to have
the opinion of a specialist on this point.”
“Try Miss Southover.”
“A maiden schoolmistress who makes a thousand a year by teaching girls
how to be at once dignified and dunces! She would be too shocked to be
able to give an opinion. No, I should apply to a man of the world--a
bishop, or at least a rural dean. Now I have done with this subject. I
didn’t go very far, did I? A year ago I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have
gone even so far.”
“Poor old Pris!”
“You may say that. I feel to-day as old as your grandmother. And I have
been thinking--oh, what thinking! I know what there is in me, Rosa. If
ever any girl was made to be a help to a man, that girl was me. And am
I, because I allowed myself to be made a fool of--am I therefore bound
to do nothing with my life--nothing, only to live it--to live my life
apart from all that makes life life?”
“Poor old Pris! There never was any one who had half your bad luck!”
“You may say that. But you needn’t think that I have done with life yet.
I haven’t.”
“That’s what I love about you, Priscilla. You are so rebellious! You
are not one of the tame ones who submit to what they call the will of
Providence.”
“I think too highly of Providence to believe that its will is that my
life should be wrecked by no fault of my own--no fault except obedience.
It was my obedience that made me what I am to-day, and upon my word I
don’t believe that my punishment is out of proportion to my offence.”
“Your offence? But you never----”
“I did. I ceased to be myself. I put myself behind myself and allowed
myself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter--the slaughter of that
womanhood which I should have upheld--my womanhood, which meant the
right to think for myself--the right to be a woman to love a man, and
help him in his life and be loved by him and to give him children. That
is how love is immortal--our children live after us, and our children’s
children!... No more obedience for me, thanks; I mean to live my life.
That’s all!”
“I’ll tell you what I think, Priscilla----” Rosa allowed a considerable
interval to elapse before she spoke. “I’ll tell you what I think, and
that is, that the awfulness of the past year has made a woman of you in
this way.”
Priscilla seemed a little startled by the enunciation of this theory.
She looked quickly at her companion, and then laughed queerly.
“God is too busy making worlds, universes and that, to have a moment to
spare to a woman,” said she. “No, it is the man who makes the woman;
and be sure that if the woman is made by the man, the man is made by
the woman--by the woman and by the children that she gives him. And
yet--here we are.”
“Yes,” said Rosa, “here we are. Oh, there is one thing certain: God made
primroses.”